chocolate

I've been playing around with black bean brownies for a while now, because they're so delicious and nutritious. Think about it, a dark chocolaty brownie made with protein and fiber-rich black beans that's also lower in fat and sugar than a traditional brownie but still has all the chocolate and flavor. Breakfast! They seem to make a lot of sense here in Mexico, the land of black beans and chocolate, so it's not surprising that my amigos here love them.

I've made 4 different variations of black bean brownies in the last few months, and all of them were super-yummy, but my most recent batch was awesome. I nailed the ingredient ratios, making a dark fudgy complex brownie that plays off of 5 different kinds of beans: black beans, cacao, carob, coffee, vanilla. I also used just enough natural sugars, just enough flavorful fat, just enough dark chocolate, and just enough booze to make these decadent and beautiful tasting without going over-board and making a sugar-coma inducing empty calorie-packed brownie. So as rich as these are, they're rich *and* healthy: full of fiber, protein, natural sugars, antioxidants, and love!

There is one unusual ingredient in these that may be hard to find, and that is carob syrup. I managed to score some in a little Asian import shop in the Zona Libre (the "Free Zone" between Mexico and Belize). Carob syrup is naturally sweet and delicious, great stuff, and you can probably find it in Middle Eastern grocery stores. But if you don't have it, you can still make these brownies and they'll be delicious with or without carob.

Egg-free or vegan:I'm pretty sure an egg substitute for 2 eggs would do the trick - if anyone tries please let us all know in the comments. See comment #18. Thanks Jen!

Grease and dust a smallish pan - I use a 10" x 7.5" stainless steel pan greased with coconut oil and dusted with icing sugar mixed with a bit of cinnamon (cocoa or carob works too). Bake in a pre-heated oven at 350 till set - about 20 min. Allow to cool to room temperature then cut into squares. Store in a sealed container in the fridge - they'll firm up a bit - I really like these cold out of the fridge.

A little something I came up with while living in the jungle: Chocolate and maseca black bean brownie mini-cakes made on the frying pan.

I've been spending so much time posting OPAPs (other people's awesome pics) on my other blog, that I've let my own photography slide a bit. I'm still baking away, having fun with the limitations I have baking here in a little town in tropical Mexico, in a little rental house with a very basic kitchen (i.e. limited access to ingredients and gear) as well as only baking on cool mornings (which are getting rare as it's starting to really heat up here). While finding, selecting, and posting awesome pics from all over the world on Baking is Hot, I realized that I have to make an effort to take more photos of my own goods - and not just ok photos. Yes, that's tricky to do considering my semi-nomadic styles these days, but if I want to be a hot-shot designer/baker/producer then my pics have to be awesome, or at least look very delicious. :)

Here are a few photos of some of my Mexican chocolate experiments. (Not bad?) More recipes coming soon... Happy healthy baking and photo-taking!

Oh, and if you have any great-sneaky-crafty food photography tips or links, please share in the comments. :)

Fresh corn tortillas as crepes. I made a sweet chocolate spread (similar to my Noir Chocolate Spread) with local honey, cacao, coconut oil, and vanilla.

Experiments in rustic chocolate making.

For a couple of months, I was obsessed with making my own chocolate from scratch. I bought fermented beans from different produce markets, learned how to roast them myself, ground them up and mixed in more ingredients, pressed it all into forms.... but could never get a really pronounced chocolate flavour out of my beans. What I found out after learning more about cacao quality and fermentation, is that most of the good cacao beans are exported to Europe. Sigh. My rustic chocolates were still pretty delicious. :)

Once upon a time, on a cold dark winter night, I was living in a tiny condo in downtown Toronto. The condo was a furnished short-term rental, and the kitchen was bare-bones - not a pan, whisk, or mixing bowl to be seen. It was about this time of the year, and I wanted to make a festive treat to enjoy with my sweetheart. Something easy. Something beautiful. Something familiar, but different...

I perused some of my favourite food blogs, and was inspired by this stellar recipe for peanut butter cups. I imagined a variation with 2 of my favorite things: super-fine dark chocolate and smooth almond butter. Add a sprinkle of sea salt and whoa ~

November! It's been a while. I've been all over the continent the past few months. After my cross-Canada trek, I spent a bit of time in the lovely Okanagan, enjoying all the bounty of late summer. After that, my sweetheart and I drove down the west coast USA, then east to the Sonora dessert, then south down into Mexico - hugging the west coast all the way over to Troncones, then across the continent again (and through sprawling Mexico city) all the way over to the south eastern corner of the Yucatan, where we finally arrived in the lovely little town of Bacalar where we are settling for the next few months or more...

This time we are in town (rather than the jungle), so that we can have the internet, as well as people to speak Spanish with. Todavia estoy apreniendo español. (I'm still studying Spanish. Feel free to correct me!) We are also close to a sweet little mercado (market) with lovely ripe local tropical fruit and veggies. I even found a little shop that sells bulk fermented cacao beans! Sooo looking forward to concocting my own rustic chocolate... I will share info, tips, recipes, and pics while I'm here - but more often I'll be off swimming in the cenote, making awesome fruit salads, or studying my Spanish. :-)

Thank you for all of your comments and feedback - I'm really impressed by all the creative healthy baking going on. Since I'm back online, I can reply to comments and questions too - I love all the delicious healthy food banter you know. I've also been checking out your blogs - great stuff!

Made with freshly-ground whole almonds, natural sugars, vanilla, nutmeg, and dark chocolate (to mention just a few of the stellar ingredients) it's incredibly flavourful, moist, and heathy too. The almonds give the bread a satisfying bite, and lend their own natural sweetness. Speaking of sweet, I've tweaked the sugar (agave nectar) till it hit that wonderful sweet but not-too-sweet balance, which allows all the flavours and textures to shine. This recipe is dairy optional, wheat and gluten-free. Use high quality dark chocolate chips for a supremely delicious treat. I'm not one to push brands, but Ghirardelli 60% cocoa bittersweet chocolate chips are pretty awesome!

It's still chocolate and zucchini season, so after scoring a hefty dark green beauty, I stayed in on a Saturday night and made this delicious cake. (Really, I had every opportunity to go out, but I wanted to stay in and bake ;-) Like my Healthy Chocolate Zucchini Cake, it's a variation of my grandma's super-rich traditional recipe, which I've updated to be wheat-free (+ gluten-free) and lower in refined ingredients, sugar and fat. This version is moist, rich and airy with a delicate blend of aromatic ingredients + extra chocolate.

Not too long ago I noticed a hot trend around the web - the black bean brownie. The concept is awesome: a rich dark chocolaty brownie made with fiber-and-protein-rich black beans (wheat-free). Sounds like breakfast to me! Above is a pic from a batch I made based on this recipe. (Mine were made with extra chocolate, less butter, less agave, no coffee or walnuts...)

The result tasted great, looked amazing, but didn't really have a brownie texture - and also had to be refrigerated to stay firm. The texture was more like a cheesecake, a really yummy cheese-less cheesecake, so that's what they'll be in their next life. We had no problems scarfing this experiment down.

UPDATE: See comment #3 for the recipe (I've added a bit of starch to firm things up a bit) - apparently they rock. :D

In late summer and early fall, my mom would have giant zucchinis from her garden - they were often comically large and obscenely shaped. Us kids weren't really into veggies, especially giant green ones, so my mom would make these into rich chocolate zucchini cakes. The recipe she used was my Ukrainian grandma's recipe: a lovely moist chocolatey cake with a hint of spice. We loved it.

When I got older, I scored the recipe from my mom, and after looking it over, decided that it needed a bit of a (healthy) makeover. (Her recipe used 1 3/4c white sugar, white flour, and over 1c of fat - yikes!) Being the health-conscious sweet-loving young woman that I was, I altered the recipe to make it as healthy as possible, while still being loyal to the delicious flavours and texture.

The recipe I came up with uses whole ingredients, a lot less sugar and fat (over half as much! don't worry, the zucchini keeps things moist) - and more chocolate, spice and vanilla. I've had this recipe for years, and just remembered that I didn't share it yet, so voila!

They really do make their chocolates with human-power, grinding and delivering their goods using pedal-power. At the market they were making hot chocolate with a hand-crank blender - very cool! The varieties I brought home were (clockwise from left): dark chocolate with vanilla and cocoa nibs, Mexican spiced chocolate, chocolate with sesame seed and sea salt.